Hey there Reader,

When I last wrote to you, I was getting on a plane to head to New York City ... one of my favourite places in the world, and somewhere I haven't been in years.

The whole reason I went there was to take Robert McKee's Story Seminar, a 3-day-long seminar that loosely follows his publishing library (Story, Character, Dialogue) and culminates in his trademark lecture: A full day watching, discussing and analyzing the film Casablanca.

After I registered and I received the agenda for the seminar, with 9-hour days, I assumed that there would be breakout rooms, or we would split off into smaller groups...I didn't assume that Robert McKee, now 81-years-old, would actually lecture for the entire day, each day.

I was wrong. He did just that.

That's right: No Q+A periods, no open mic moments, no guest lecturers to help fill the hours. It was all McKee, all the time....and what made it even more poignant is the fact that this was his final tour of his much-loved seminar. After this, it will live online, but no more in-person seminars. This was one of the last-last-last days to see him in person.

The seminar was exactly what you want these sorts of things to be: mind-expanding, wondrous, an excuse to meet some new interesting people, fill a notebook full of notes, and the self-gratifying feeling that yes, I can, actually, sustain my attention span, on one thing, for an entire day. Phew.

Half way through the first day

McKee began to break down his take on "genre" when it comes to story. This has been a huge part of my focus recently - Last month I launched a Substack newsletter called Bingeworthy, which has a singular focus: to review, discuss and form a listening community around serialized narrative podcasts (one story told over multiple episodes).

My goal is to deeply investigate how narrative podcasts have changed the storytelling landscape. And then, my even bigger goal, is to help them to gain recognition and authority...as their own *thing* like indie films, installation art, and pickleball.

I spent months planning and preparing to launch this newsletter. It needs its own character and tone (different from this one...this isn't going anywhere!), I want to be rigorous, and I want it to be helpful...let me help find a new series for you to listen to, and then, I'll share how I listen to them, with producer ears, so you can hear it in a new way.

For the last decade, I've listened to hundreds of hours of narrative podcasts. I've watched them take hold as a storytelling form, I've seen how they have changed the way we consume stories, and I've heard why they work...as an art form....as a *thing.*

Turns out, finding the language for what all of this is, isn't exactly easy.

What are narrative podcasts, actually?

• something like other podcasts (but different)
• told with a filmic story arc (without image)
• using old style radio techniques (in a new century)
• usually listened to through intimate headphones (like talking with your bff)

With a gap forming around all known terms, I was backed into a corner, and decided to just call them a *thing,* which is, to be clear, a wholly inadequate word.

And then...In an attempt to raise the bar above a Grade 4-level word...I took a leap, and I called them a "genre" of storytelling, in my very first, brand new newsletter.

Why did I do this? I wanted to raise the bar for them. I also did this for efficiency, for clarity...and also to offer a bit of pizzaz to a subject that does veer into the dry category.

But by Thursday afternoon at the start of the seminar, as McKee lectured about what is, and what is NOT a genre, my stomach began to sink.

Genre is the way that we categorize stories, so we can tell them at a glance: Romance, or Comedy, or Horror are all genres.

Strictly speaking, a narrative podcast is not a genre - and we know that because there is an entire value system that identifies each genre. It's taken a few thousand years of storytelling around the campfire to sort this all out.

The correct term for how to identify narrative podcasts, McKee identified around 1:25pm on Thursday afternoon, is a "Presentational Genre." These are the from and format used to tell that specific genre of story: so Documentary, animation, drama are all presentational genres.

As I sat in the audience, listening to McKee, I recalled what I had written:

There you have it. I have confessed to my genre crime, hopefully we can still be friends.

It's up to you, New York, New York! Nothing like arriving back in this city for the first time in years, walking in the subway, and hearing a trumpet playing a solo rendition of New York, New York! And then a small taste of that NYT subway ASMR to get you into the New York state of mind.

Sending with audio love,

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